I work on a pretty old application which was converted from DOS and flat files for storing information to Paradox tables using the BDE then to MySQL relational database.
The older devs say that the ...

Question should be clear from its title. For example Apache saves its access and error logs in files instead of RDBMS no matter on how large or small scale it is being utilized.
For RDMS we just have ...

I watched Douglas Crockford's JavaScript talks recently, and at one point, he said that Microsoft did not consider JavaScript important because they saw the web as a passing phase of internet usage ...

I always wonder this, and perhaps I need a good history lesson on programming languages.
But since most compilers nowadays are made in C, how were the very first compilers made (AKA before C) or were ...

I'm your standard Java/Oracle developer at a large software firm and Eclipse 3.6 is what I spend most of day in. Java is incredibly verbose and that can be painful (but we don't need another blog post ...

I come from a scientific biology background where we also use Python a lot.
Now that I've begun to start with Web development, I've consistently found myself wondering just why it is that JavaScript ...

I have been working (alone) on an open-source project without using any sort of formal version control.
I recently started using Git and GitHub for this project and am wondering if it is possible for ...

A coworker was wondering this today: "Why is it that in our industry 'production' means 'final, deliverable product'? You know, like if a movie is 'in production', it means they're currently filming ...

With the movie "Source Code" just coming out today, I have had to explain the meaning of the phrase to non-techies. Then I was asked why source code is called source code and couldn't really answer.
...

Anybody still programming using old computers, e.g. ZX Spectrum BASIC, Amiga BASIC, dumb terminals?
If so, do you find it useful for programming using today's technologies?
Lastly why do you do it? ...

I'm just starting to learn C#. Coming from a background in Java, C++ and Objective-C, I find C#'s Pascal-casing its method-names rather unique, and a tad difficult to get used to at first. What is the ...

Inspired by this question.
I heard that some very very early versions of C compilers for personal computers (I guess it's around 1980) resided on two or three floppy disks and so in order to compile ...

I assume they weren't able to sit in front of a computer for the whole day like we do today. So how did they write their program? On a piece of paper and type it later when the computer is available? ...

It seems to be Java orthodoxy at this point that one should basically never use public fields for object state. (I don't necessarily agree, but that's not relevant to my question.) Given that, would ...

Where did exceptions and exception handling come from?
I like how .NET uses it, I like how C++ supports it (but libraries unfortunately use return code or is written in C instead). I know its pretty ...

It costs almost nothing to use the commit history maintained by the version control system. However, during a major project refactoring (or reorganization / cleanup) effort, functions and classes and ...

I am rereading Refactoring by Martin Fowler. In Chapter 4, Building Tests, I came across the following passage.
In fact, one of the most usefull times to write tests is before you start programming. ...